Wind power runs into resistance

For Western Botanicals' owners, Spanish Fork hasn't acted quickly enough to accommodate the business, which will first need a change in the city's ordinance to even put up a pole for one turbine.

"We're still fighting," Christensen said. "It's going to happen — it's not a matter of if, it's when."

Now a report released this month urges policymakers to get on board with community-based wind power.

The report is called "Community Wind 101: A Primer for Policymakers," put out by the groups Harvesting Clean Energy, 25x'25 America's Energy Future and The Energy Foundation. They say that developing wind energy sources at all levels "will require modernizing and expanding transmission systems to carry power from remote windy areas to cities."

The nonprofit 25x'25's goal is to see this country get 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources like wind, solar and biofuels by 2025.

"In places where transmission is currently limited, community wind with its typically smaller scale can be developed to serve local needs," reads a summary of their report.

The three groups go on to say that a "favorable" policy environment, with attention to tax incentives, is needed to overcome high startup costs. They hold up Minnesota as an example of a wind-friendly state, pointing out how that state has offered smaller-scale wind producers "production incentives, guaranteed markets, standardized legal agreements, capital support and other assistance."

The report can be found at www.harvestcleanenergy.org/wind/CommWind.htm.

The Western Botanicals owners want to put up as many as three turbines on 45-foot poles on their property that includes less than an acre of land in an industrial area. They've determined that the best energy-producing winds come during the evening.

Tying into the local utility grid would mean all of that energy being produced while they're not around at night would be transmitted into the grid for public consumption. In effect, depending upon the volume of their own power consumption, the tie-in would generate credits toward their overall power bill through so-called "net metering" if they use less power than they're producing.

The Western Botanicals owners have so far been advised to purchase batteries to store electricity for private consumption at the business. That idea would be fine as a backup power source if the grid failed, Christensen added, but overall he's against essentially being forced (if he can't tie into the grid) to buy batteries with a shelf life that would mean needing to replace them every five or 10 years. He wants access to the grid.